Chinese food in Greater Boston

Do you crave egg rolls and pork fried rice? How about crab rangoon or lo mein? Check out our roundup of the best Chinese food around Boston (we’ve included many eateries that our readers told us are among their favorites as well as restaurants that our food writers have visited through the years).

Changsho is the fourth Chinese restaurant run by the Chen family, who also own Lotus Blossom in Sudbury, Water Lily in Wayland, and Lotus Flower in Framingham. For those who can’t get enough of Changsho’s Chinese cuisine, they also offer a Sunday buffet brunch with more than 35 menu items, like sushi, dim sum, and dessert.

This Chinatown spot is a popular late-night hangout for hungry bargoers come closing time: While Boston’s watering holes turn off the lights at 2 a.m., Chau Chow City serves until 4 a.m. on the weekend nights.

“Now that CK Sau, the dean of Chinese cooking in Boston, has moved to Wellesley, the tide has turned, culinarily speaking. Now one of the hubs of ‘real’ Chinese is in this western suburb,” said Allison Arnett in her 2005 Globe review.

“With more waitstaff than customers milling about, we slurped down two gigantic steamed oysters swimming in ginger-scallion sauce, then tackled the fragrant pile of fried jumbo shrimp with spiced salt—biting through the crunchy shells and heads into the soft flesh inside,” wrote Globe reviewers Amy Graves and Joe Yonan in 2003.

Chef Gene Wu, known for his special hand-pulled noodles, has opened a second location in addition to his popular Chelmsford take-out restaurant . Wu hails from Xi’an, the capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi province, where he learned to cook under the instruction of local chefs. Aside from the popular hand-pulled noodles, the restaurant offers flatbread sandwiches, lamb stew, and a variety of other noodle dishes.

Pictured: Hand-pulled noodles, available for dine-in or take-out.
Next

For a classic winter meal, try Gourmet Dumpling House’s mini steamed buns. Also known as xiao long bao or soup dumplings, the soup is contained inside the dumpling. Pick one up with your chopsticks, dip it in a sauce of vinegar and ginger, and place it on your spoon. Then take a careful bite, slurping out the piping hot broth.

Ike DeLorenzo visited Kowloon in June 2011: “Kowloon offers more than 400 items, grouped as Polynesian, Cantonese, Szechuan, Thai, sushi. That many dishes on a menu often doesn’t bode well, but nothing at Kowloon follows usual rules. While not all dishes work, more than enough do. Sushi is very good, as are many of the authentic and well-prepared Thai specialties. Much of the Chinese food is classic 1960s Chinese-American – but tasty.”
Next

Mei Mei street kitchen is owned and operated by three siblings: Andy, Margaret, and Irene. The trio add an interesting twist to Chinese favorites, and their menu is constantly changing. The meat they serve is pasture-raised, humanely slaughtered, and sourced locally within 100 miles of Boston, and they offer plenty of vegetarian options as well. One often requested favorite is the “Double Awesome” sandwich, comprised of two poached-and-fried eggs, a summer greens pesto, and extra sharp cheddar cheese inside a scallion pancake. You can view Mei Mei Street Kitchen’s current menu here.

Mu Lan Taiwanese Restaurant owners Hong Tan and her brother, chef Shui Huang Han, make a different version of fried chicken. This version marinates in sugar, salt, and rice wine. Then the meat is dredged in sweet-potato flour, and cooked in the hot oil with fresh basil leaves.

“The music is loud and highly shuffled (Sam Cooke! The Police!), the waiters are interactive, and the food—Asian dishes, mostly Chinese, in smallish portions perfect for sharing—is high in flavor and low in price,” wrote Globe food critic Devra First in 2007.

Globe movie critic Wesley Morris counted P.F. Chang’s as one of his favorite things back in 2008. He wrote, “Contrary to what you think, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro is not the Applebee’s of Chinese food. It’s the Bertucci’s of Chinese food: solid, inexpensive, generically faithful renditions of the real thing.”

Sacha Pfeiffer wrote in her 2004 review, “In the old Southie, if you hankered for Asian take-out, you settled for greasy fried rice served in styrofoam. Teriyaki House has changed that, offering Chinese and Japanese food that’s fresh, made to order, and loaded with crisp vegetables.”

Dishes at this Chinese and Polynesian restaurant include crab rangoons, cashew chicken with Peking sauce, and the Hawaiian Wedding—slices of beef and chicken in batter sauteed with pineapple chunks and Chinese vegetables on a bed of noodles.